My approach to a subject is to see it in layers.Looking at the world, it feels sometimes like a thousand cameras are clicking away in my head.There is so much to try and capture, that to understand it ,I frequently make collage work more freely than sketches.It is like all the expression is trying to speak at once. I collect discarded shopping lists,gloves,digital images of footprints and the shadows of passing pedestrians tracing across the pavements.In a chaotic place I seek solace by trying to visualise some order or expression. I am really enjoying using new materials to work with for example Bideford Black (natural pigment I have used to make some paint) Iodine, old newspapers ( as far back as the1870s they have a different feel), coffee grounds and hammerite to name but a few. If I have a day with out making I begin to feel uncomfortable and trapped. I find it hard to speak with trained artists as they seem to work more calmly and think more clearly.
My work at the moment is based around crowds of people, I am interested in the way groups of people and individuals stand or sit a certain distance apart, surges of people rushing for a train, or sitting at a concert.I look at photographs of these things, make my own interpretations and then use these as sketches to build more expressive free work, of what it feels like to me, in a crowd.